


This Night

by Rhiannon87



Category: Dragon Age
Genre: F/M, Post-Game(s), Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-28
Updated: 2011-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-26 15:34:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/284914
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhiannon87/pseuds/Rhiannon87
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for a prompt on the kinkmeme. OP requested a Hawke/Anders fic inspired by the song "This Night" by Black Lab.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. This Night

It’s less a knock and more of a thump at her door. She’s tempted to ignore it, to pretend she doesn’t hear anything and curl up in her bed and wait out the storm, but she knows she’d never forgive herself if she doesn’t check.

“ _You’re a soft touch,” he murmurs, smiling against her skin, fingers threading through her hair—_

She shakes her head to clear it and opens the door. She stares for a few seconds and nearly slams it shut again, because she can’t be seeing what she’s seeing. The months alone have finally driven her mad.

“Marian?” Anders asks, slumped against the doorframe, staring at her with open desperation.

There are a thousand questions swirling through her mind. “How did you find me?” is the first one that comes out.

He shrugs, huddled into his threadbare coat. “I don’t—Justice seemed to know where to go.”

She presses her lips together at the mention of the spirit. “Why would he want to come to me?”

Anders looks miserable. “Because you cared about me once,” he replies. “I’m not asking for—for forgiveness, or for you to join me, or… it’s freezing, Mar, I just need somewhere to sleep. Just for the night.”

She closes her eyes briefly, then steps aside, holding the door open. “Get in here before you freeze to death,” she says.

He slips into the small cabin, immediately gravitating towards the fire. She locks the door and just looks at him. It’s been three years, and he’s aged a decade. His hair is streaked with grey, clothes more patches than whole cloth, and he’s dangerously thin, almost insubstantial.

She gestures at the chair in front of the fire. “Sit down,” she tells him, stepping into the small kitchen of her cabin. There’s some stew left from dinner, and a quick burst of flame from her fingers relights the stove. It’ll take a few minutes to heat up again.

Anders looks like he collapsed into the chair more than sat in it, his head resting against the back, eyes closed. “When was the last time you ate?” Hawke asks quietly.

He shrugs. “Yesterday. Day before. I don’t…” He gestures vaguely at his head. “Lots of holes. Not much left of me. Or Justice, really. It’s all Vengeance, now.”

She sighs and wraps her arms around herself. “What are you doing out here?” she asks. “I-I’ve heard things, about the war. The rebellions.”

He smiles, bitterly, and opens his eyes to glance at her. “You’re wondering why I’m up in the mountains by Tevinter instead of fighting the good fight, hm?” He shakes his head and leans towards the fire. “I’m a better symbol than a leader,” he says. “They want me to put in an appearance, but they never want me to stay. Too unpredictable. I can’t even tell them what I’ll do, what will bring Vengeance out.” He lets out a weak, mirthless chuckle that devolves into a cough. “Isn’t that how the stories go?” he asks. “Vengeance isn’t something you seek with your friends or family. You do it alone.” He closes his eyes again. “Varric had a story about that…”

“He had a story about everything,” she whispers, more to herself than him. He glances over at her, and the utterly broken look in his eyes hurts like a knife to the chest. She turns away to check on the stew. It’s warm enough, and she fills a bowl, grabbing a spoon as she edges past the table wedged in the corner. “Here,” she says, handing him the bowl.

“Thanks, love,” he replies, and she’s certain he doesn’t realize what he’s said.

It still hurts too much for her to let it slide. “Don’t call me that,” she says, and she means for it to come out angry, not whispered and sad. He nods and looks away, turning his attention to the food. “I’ll get you some blankets,” she says, any excuse to leave the room, to get away from him for just a minute.

Her bedroom is dark, and she lights one of her candles as she crosses the room to the dresser. It doesn’t get nearly as cold here as it did in Ferelden or Kirkwall most of the time, but she still keeps a healthy supply of blankets around. Old habits, most likely.

There’s a thump on the floor behind her as she leaves the room with an armful of blankets, and she smiles in spite of herself. “This should be enough,” she says, setting them beside the fireplace.

Anders has already finished half the stew, and he looks up at her with a grateful smile. Then something on the floor by her feet catches his eye, and the smile changes to one of simple delight, if just for a moment. “Hey there,” he says, leaning down and holding out his fingers for the cat to sniff. “You got a cat?”

Hawke shrugs, leaning against the wall, arms wrapped around herself. “Critter died last spring,” she says.

He glances up from the cat and frowns. “I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head. “It’s all right. He had a good, full life.” She sighs. “Anyway, about halfway through the summer, this little girl made herself at home in my garden. She’s good company.”

“I told you they were,” he replies with a crooked grin, and for a second he’s her Anders again, a man she hasn’t seen for three (or four or five or six) years. “What’s her name?”

“Sage,” she replies. “Found her curled up underneath the plant. Seemed appropriate enough.”

Sage is happily pacing back and forth under his hand, letting him scratch her head and back. It’s such a terribly normal scene, Anders eating dinner and playing with the cat, and she’s suddenly painfully aware of how damn lonely she’s been. He could stay, she thinks. He could stay, and rest, and they could just… be, together, for whatever time he has left. Less than twenty years, if the Warden’s Calling is what takes him, but looking at him now she doubts he’d make it that long.

She looks away, shaking her head slightly. Is that really what she wants? To spend years caring for a broken shell of a man, a man who’s losing pieces of himself with every passing day, a man she’ll very likely have to kill herself when there’s naught left in him but Vengeance? Assuming the spirit would even let him stay. It’s driven him to do such terrible things in the name of his revolution. There’s no reason to think that he’d be able to stay, even if part of him wanted to.

Anders has finished eating while she’s been lost in thought, and he pats his leg, smiling at the cat. Sage hesitates for a moment, then springs onto his lap, purring. “She’s sweet,” he says, stroking her fur.

Hawke just nods. “Where will you go?” she asks suddenly. “After tonight.”

He closes his eyes, looking exhausted, and shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he replies. “I don’t… I don’t really choose, anymore. It’s… easier than fighting.” He looks over at her, then, eyes dark and unreadable. “Why didn’t you kill me?” he asks, and there’s a faint echo to his voice, a hint of blue glimmer in his eyes. “Why did you let me go?”

She looks down. “I loved you too much to kill you,” she says quietly. “But I couldn’t stand the sight of you then. Telling you to run seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“And now?”

She doesn’t owe him anything. Not after what he did. But she can’t bring herself to lie to him. “I should never have let you go.”

That startles him, his gaze snapping up to her and his hand stilling on Sage’s back. “You think you could have helped?” he asks, voice suddenly rough. “Still think you could’ve saved me?”

Hawke shrugs. “If nothing else, I wouldn’t have made things worse.” He laughs bitterly and looks away. She steps over to him and picks up the bowl from the floor. “You should sleep,” she tells him.

Sage hops off his lap and follows her back to the kitchen, twisting around her ankles and purring comfortingly. Hawke leans against the table and covers her face with her hands, drawing in a few steadying breaths, fighting back the urge to weep. Seeing what he’s become, realizing yet again what _her_ life has become, what she’s lost… she wonders, sometimes, why she keeps getting up in the morning.

With a deep breath, she pushes off the table and walks back into the main room. Anders has nested on the floor in front of the fire, head pillowed on his coat. She pauses in the door of her bedroom. “Don’t leave before I’m awake,” she tells him.

He opens his eyes and looks up at her. “I—all right,” he agrees.

She manages a faint smile. “Sleep well.”

Anders makes a scoffing noise. “I’ll try.”

 

*

 

The storm hits around midnight, howling wind and snow pounding into the walls of the cabin. Sage burrows under the blankets with her and curls up against her chest, clearly unhappy with this turn of events. Hawke sleeps fitfully, starting awake at every sound, terrified that she’ll hear the door close and he’ll disappear.

Ultimately, though, it’s not the door slamming that drives her out of bed. It’s his panicked, desperate cries, and the habits of sleeping beside him for three years send her running to his side. He’s sitting up, curled in on himself, blue cracks flickering in and out of existence across his skin. “Anders,” she whispers, kneeling beside him, placing a hand on his arm. He jumps at the contact and raises his head to look at her. “It was just a nightmare, love,” she says, and winces when she realizes what she’s said. He doesn’t seem to notice, or if he does, he doesn’t comment. “Just a bad dream.”

He’s still trembling, still a wreck, and against all her better judgment she eases him to his feet, guiding him to her room. “Mar,” he protests weakly when she sits him down on the bed. “You—you don’t…”

“Just to sleep,” she tells him, setting the rule more for herself than for him. He nods, too exhausted to argue further, and lets her ease him down under the blankets. She climbs into bed beside him and pulls him into her arms.

He presses his face against her shoulder and lets out a shuddery breath, closer to a sob than anything. “I’m sorry,” he whispers brokenly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m _so_ sorry…”

She cards her fingers through his hair. “I know,” she murmurs. Part of her says she shouldn’t forgive him, not after everything he did to her, to Kirkwall, to Thedas.

The other part says that it’s been three years, and she forgave him a long time ago.

Hawke brushes a light kiss to his temple. Anders shudders and presses closer against her, seemingly trying to get inside her skin. She just closes her eyes and runs her fingers through his hair, gentle, soothing touches, the sort of thing that always lulled him back to sleep in the past.

Some things don’t change, even with everything that’s happened, and he drifts off to sleep in her arms. Hawke holds him, counting each warm breath against her collarbone. Sage determines that the bed’s occupants have calmed down enough for it to be a suitable resting place again and joins them, curled up on Hawke’s feet.

She has no idea what will happen tomorrow. He might leave. She might convince him to stay. She might persuade the spirit to let him remain with her, to let him have some peace before it destroys him completely. But he’ll be there in the morning. For now, it’s enough.


	2. And All the Days After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for a prompt on the kinkmeme. OP requested a sequel to "This Night."

After Anders has been there for one night, Hawke wakes to an empty bed.

She's terrified, for a moment, when she wakes up, though it takes her a moment to remember _why_ she’s terrified. Then it comes back, that he’d been there and now he isn't, and she scrambles out of bed, praying that he hasn’t left again.

She finds him in the dim front room, peering speculatively out the window at the snow drifts piled up taller than him. “You’re still here,” she breathes, sagging against the doorframe in relief.

Anders half-turns from the window and almost smiles. “Even if I had somewhere to go, I don’t think I could get the door open,” he says wryly. Then he looks away, nervous, shoulders hunched. “I, uh, I’m sorry about…” He gestures at himself. “I think you’re stuck with me until the snow clears.”

“You don’t have to leave,” she says, the words coming out before she’s really thought about it. Anders blinks at her. Hawke swallows hard and continues. “If you wanted to stay. If…” _If the spirit or demon or whatever it is inside you will let you._ “If you can. I, uh, I wouldn’t mind… I’d like you to stay.”

He stares at her, shocked into silence, before looking away again, seemingly at a loss. “I don’t know if I can,” he finally says. “But, thank you. I… I’ll think about it.”

It’s surprising just how much of a relief it is to hear. She smiles and tilts her head at his abandoned nest on the floor. “Why don’t you clean up, and I’ll get breakfast,” she suggests. He gives her that almost-smile again and nods.

*

He’s been there for a day when she sees what he’s kept. He has a light satchel and his coat, the same feathery black thing he wore back in Kirkwall, towards the end—though now it’s a faded, dirty grey, with mismatched patches covering the worn spots. She finds him sitting on the edge of the bed, going through his things, almost ritualistically, and she stays in the doorway and watches as he sorts them onto the blankets.

There’s a bundle of worn, tattered clothes in the satchel, along with a battered leather book and a few sticks of charcoal. She wonders if it's still that damned manifesto. It had become less a political tract and more a desperate plea towards the end, a cry for help, an anchor for the parts of him that were still Anders to hold onto. She’d stopped reading it months before everything fell apart, didn’t see what his writing had become until after she’d thrown everything into bags and fled the city. She wonders if she could have done something to stop it, if only…

He still has his dagger and a leather pouch of elfroot on his belt. The worn, dark green leather band that he’d always kept tied around the hilt of his blade is separate, apparently, laid out neatly alongside everything else. It's joined by the two rings he wears, both enchanted, trophies of their expeditions into ancient ruins or maleficarum lairs. Next is the Tevinter amulet from around his neck and a set of brass keys from his pocket, the keys to her house in Kirkwall. He doesn’t have a staff anymore.

“I have to make sure I remember,” he says quietly, and she starts, surprised that he noticed her. “I’ve gotten rid of so much, but I have to remember why I’ve kept these things, because if I don’t…” He rubs his forehead, an unchanged sign that he’s struggling with Justice. “It was a distraction, all of it, but I couldn’t let it go.”

She sits down beside him, close but not touching, and looks at the pieces of his identity arranged on her blanket. “Have you ever forgotten?” she asks. His silence is all the answer she needs.

*

He’s been there for five days when the spirit first confronts her.

The snow’s started to melt, finally, and he’s been pacing around the house, looking out the windows and muttering to himself, hands twitching. Sage doesn’t like it—she follows him around, meowing and attacking his ankles, trying to get him to sit down and play with her. Anders ignores her, ignores both of them, growing increasingly moodier as the day drags on.

Hawke shuts Sage in the bedroom before going to him, because she lived with Anders for three years and she knows what’s coming. “What’s wrong?” she asks gently, internally bracing herself.

He whirls from the window to face her. Everything about him is tense, brittle, hands balled into fists, arms rigid at his sides, jaw clenched. The only thing moving is his gaze, dancing frantically around the room. “I can’t stay,” he grinds out.

“Where do you think you'd go?” she asks, and Vengeance explodes.

She’d forgotten how utterly frightening it is when the spirit takes control. To have those blank blue eyes focused, unblinking, on her, to hear his voice warped and doubled and deepened when the spirit speaks. “To bring our kind the freedom that is their right,” he snarls. “To continue to fight that you abandoned. You hide and cower when you could be leading them! You could have been at my side all this time! You _left_ me!”

All these years and she still can’t tell what’s Anders, what’s Justice, what’s Vengeance. She found that he—they—reacted best when she spoke to them equally, as if they were all Anders, even if she doesn’t quite believe that herself. “You betrayed me,” she says, shaking her head. “You lied to me and you used me and _you_ ran, not me.”

“You were supposed to _kill me!_ ” She falls back a step, recoiling from the rage and pain in his voice. “You were supposed to end it, and you left me alive and alone. I had nothing left but the cause, what was I supposed to do!?”

Hawke swallows hard and forces herself to step back towards him. “If you leave,” she asks again, “where will you go?”

“I do not know yet,” he says. “But I will rejoin the fight. I have been away too long. They need me.”

Every instinct is telling her to run, to let him go, to get this _thing_ out of her house and her life for good. Instead she takes another step forward and puts a hand on his arm. It’s an electric jolt, like she’s stuck her arm through the Veil straight into the Fade, but under that she can feel the warm, solid reality of blood and flesh and bone. “No, they don’t,” she says carefully. “I get letters from Varric. The Chantry’s collapsing. They’re desperate and they’re losing. The Circle mages—it’s their revolution now. Not yours.” She takes a deep breath and slides her hand up to rest along his jaw. “You started it, Anders. You’ve done your part. You—you’ve earned some rest.” _Some peace, for both of us, that’s all I want, just peace and time…_

He stares at her, unmoving and silent, and then the spirit recedes, leaving Anders to stagger back against the wall, digging the heels of his palms into his eyes. “You don’t want this,” he mutters, and slides down to sit on the floor. “It’s gotten worse, Mar, so much worse… you don’t want me in your life.” He hugs his legs to his chest and presses his forehead to his knees.

It breaks her heart all over again to see him like that, so completely vulnerable and small, somehow. Hawke kneels down in front of him and rests a hand on his shoulder. “That’s what you told me when we first met,” she says, a hint of a smile tugging at her lips. “I didn’t listen to you then, why would I now?”

“Because you’ve had ten years to realize what a mistake it was?” he asks, voice muffled.

She moves her hand to his face again, this time to gently tilt his chin up so he can see her. “I regret a lot of things,” she says, holding his gaze. “But I never regretted what I had with you.”

Anders stares at her, and old habits are telling her to lean in and kiss him. But it’s too soon, she knows that, they’re both too raw right now. Instead she smiles and offers him a hand up. Behind her, Sage yowls and attacks the bedroom door in righteous fury. “I think she’d like some attention,” Hawke tells him, and he dredges up a weak smile.

*

He’s been there for sixteen days when he laughs again.

It’s been a good day, unseasonably warm, and they’ve spent the afternoon tromping around in the mud, gathering more firewood and telling stories. The last three years are off-limits, and the seven before that are touchy, so they stick with the time before they met, his days in the Wardens and hers in Lothering. Some of the stories sound familiar, and she’s certain she’s heard or told them before, but it’s worth it to hear him saying the words, instead of just her memories.

Hawke dumps her armload of branches into the crate by the door and sneezes from the dust. She rubs a hand across her nose, scowling when she realizes she’s probably smeared mud on her face. With a sigh, she turns around and walks straight into Anders. He falls back a step, blinks at her, and then bursts out laughing. She sticks her tongue out at him and scrubs at her face again. He shakes his head, still giggling and looking a little surprised by it, the way Fenris used to when someone would draw laughter out of him. “Nice warpaint,” he says, licking his thumb and wiping at the mud.

“It’s the fashion in these parts,” she responds haughtily, and he giggles again. She grins and bats his hand away, since all he’s doing is smudging the mud around, and points at the door. Anders obediently goes back inside, still smiling, and she can’t help but smile back.

*

He’s been there for almost a month when she kisses him.

They’ve come close, plenty of times. They were lovers for three years, and living together again is bringing back all sorts of memories and habits. He’s been sleeping on the floor ever since that first night, though it’s not unusual for her to wake up with him in her bed after a nightmare. They don’t really talk about that particular arrangement. They don’t really talk about a lot of things, including what they were and what they are now. All she knows is that every time she’s thought about kissing him, she’s turned away, and she’s fairly certain he’s done the same.

On that night, she’s brushing her hair, watching as Anders and Sage play-fight in the hallway. She wishes that she’d given in and gotten a cat back in Kirkwall. It would have been worth Critter’s sulking jealousy to see Anders like this, silly and relaxed and _normal_.

Sage darts past him and dives under the bed. Anders follows, dropping flat on the ground beside the bed and sticking one arm underneath it. After a few seconds, he yelps and jerks his hand back, rolling over onto his back. “She bit me,” he whines, holding up his hand as evidence. Sage lets out a muffled meow.

Hawke sets her brush down and takes his hand, pulling him to his feet. “She didn’t even break the skin, you big baby,” she teases, examining the small teeth marks. She glances up at him, and he’s staring at her the way he used to back in Kirkwall, years ago, after he’d first moved in. She’d catch him sometimes, looking at her like she was a miracle or a dream, and if he moved he’d wake up or shatter the illusion and she’d disappear. Even if he’d never said ‘I love you,’ she’d have known, it was written all over his face with that look.

She always kissed him whenever she’d catch him staring like that, and before she can think about it she pushes herself up on her toes and presses her lips to his, one hand curled around the side of his neck. His breath catches, and he draws back slightly, eyes wide. “Mar--”

He’s going to argue and tell her they shouldn’t do this, and she just doesn’t _care_. She pulls him in for another kiss, slow and gentle and thorough. Anders lets out a sound that’s heartbreakingly close to a sob and wraps his arms around her, leaning into the kiss, lips parting for her. He tastes just like she remembers, kisses just like she remembers, and she doesn’t let him go until sparks flash behind her eyes for want of air.

They’re both gasping when they part. Anders brushes trembling fingers over her cheek and breathes her name, torn between fear and _wanting_ so badly she can almost feel it. She slides her arms around his waist and pulls him against her; she can feel his heart pounding against her chest. “Stay with me,” she whispers, and she means it—for tonight, for the rest of his life, for always.

“I’m yours,” he murmurs against her lips and kisses her again.

She pulls him down onto the bed, and it's so, so familiar, this part, breathless kisses and fumbling with clothes, hands sliding over a body she knows almost as well as her own. He's still painfully skinny and there are new scars littering his skin. But it's still him, and even with three years gone they both remember how this goes. She presses a kiss just behind his jaw and runs her fingers down his side, trailing just a hint of ice. He sighs, almost in relief, as he ducks his head to press kisses along her collarbone.

She's on her back, his body pressed flush against her, desperately kissing every inch of skin that she can reach and wanting him in her so badly that she aches, before either of them speaks again. “Was there-- were you--” Anders starts, stumbling over his words, “was there anyone...?”

Hawke shakes her head. “No,” she murmurs. “I didn't... I only ever wanted you.” He tries to look away; she catches the side of his face and turns him back towards her, holds his gaze. “I never stopped loving you,” she tells him.

He does let out a sob at that, shuddery and weak, and kisses her hard, his fingers tangled in her hair. When they part he buries his face in her neck, whispering that he loves her, that he always loved her, that he never wants to be without her again. She holds him tight when he slides into her, both of them gasping, and it's not until he's moving within her that she realizes how very, very much she's missed him.

It's been three years for them both, and neither of them lasts terribly long. Anders chuckles afterward, almost embarrassed, but she doesn't mind. They have time, now, time to get back to where they were. Or maybe to something else altogether. All she knows is that she falls asleep in his arms so much faster than she ever did alone.

The next morning, they wake up to find Sage glaring at them from the foot of the bed, utterly unimpressed by this new disturbance in her bed. Anders laughs and holds out a hand to her, wiggling his fingers as a lure. She eventually relents and trots over, purring, to nuzzle his hand. He scoops up the cat and tucks her into the small pocket of blanket between them, scratching her head affectionately before draping his arm over Hawke’s waist. She leans in and kisses him, smiling, finally happy again after so long.

*

He’s been there for five months when he runs away.

She’d romanticized their years together, in her loneliness, buried the memories of his black moods and their screaming matches, his tendency to storm out and her tendency to sulk until he came begging for forgiveness. Anders is restless, jittery, still not used to staying in one place for so long. Her patience runs out and she snaps at him, he shouts back, and within minutes they’re back to their old habits, facing off on opposite sides of the room, finding old scars and new wounds to prod until they bleed.

“I’m leaving,” he snarls and storms towards the door. It’s so bizarrely normal that for a second she doesn’t even think to be worried—he’ll just go to the clinic for a few hours, write, blow off some steam, and once he’s calmed down he’ll come back—until she remembers that this isn’t Kirkwall, the only place for him to go is away, and she’s suddenly breathless with fear.

He wrenches the door open. She swallows back her anger long enough to say “Don’t stay out too long,” because she needs him to know that no matter how bad it gets, no matter how furious they might be, she wants him to stay. She wants him to come back.

Anders glances at her, confusion cutting through the anger for a moment, then he scowls and stalks out, slamming the door behind him. Hawke exhales and sinks into a chair, hands over her face, and hopes that he'll hold to his old habits, too. He always came back after they fought. All she can do now is wait.

She’s cleaned the house and tried to read the same page eight times before giving up and planting herself in front of the window, watching for him. He returns after a few hours, trudging towards the house, morosely plucking twigs from his coat. The door creaks open and he slinks inside, gaze on the floor, shoulders hunched. He glances around until he spots her, lurking by the window, and he closes the door behind him with a sigh. “I’m sorry,” he says, arms wrapped around himself.

Hawke closes her eyes for a moment and draws in a deep breath. It’s been three years. They can’t stay the way they were, good or bad. Some things have to change.

She walks over and pries his arms loose, replacing them with her own, resting her head against his shoulder. “It’s not your fault,” she says. Anders doesn’t reply, and after a few moments, she raises her head to see him eying her skeptically. “Not _entirely_ your fault,” she amends, because he did throw a few successful verbal punches of his own. “I’m sorry, too.”

He slowly slides his arms around her back and rests his chin on top of her head. “D’you think they’d recognize me in the village?” he asks quietly.

Hawke shakes her head. “I doubt it. Varric sends letters to me at a shop in the town, but otherwise, it’s pretty cut off. Not much news of the war.”

Anders nods. “Do they… do they need a healer?”

She smiles, lightly rubbing her hand up and down his back. “It wouldn’t hurt to find out.”

*

He’s been there for eight months when she thinks that they’ve finally found their peace.

It’s a warm day in early autumn. The leaves are starting to turn, and every morning, Anders is newly astonished by the array of colors in the forest and valley below them. She used to go into the village once every two weeks or so; now they’re down there every other day. The town’s close enough to Tevinter that magic isn’t immediately feared, and she’s found that there’s a small but growing population of young apostates and not enough teachers to go around. So she helps, as much as she can, calling on old memories of her father teaching her and Bethany how to use their powers and not be afraid.

And Anders is ‘the healer’ again. He smiles every time he hears it, and she’d never realized how crucial that was to his identity, as much as mage or revolutionary or cat person. Healing magic’s hard to learn without a teacher; he’s training a few apprentices, and the townspeople are eternally grateful.

Today, though, they’re at home, sprawled under the oak tree behind the house. Sage is pouncing on blowing leaves, wrestling them into submission with fierce growls. Hawke’s leaning against the tree, and Anders is lying on the ground, his head in her lap, mostly asleep. She runs her fingers through his hair—still streaked with grey, but there's more gold too, hours spent in the sun bringing back some color—and just lets her thoughts drift.

It isn’t perfect, all sunshine and roses every day. Vengeance still gnaws at him, sometimes, pushes him to do _something_ , and she’s terrified of what will happen if the Templars or Sebastian ever find their village. They fight, about things that matter and things that don’t, but neither of them has ever run away for good. And while he’s never said it, she knows that he’s never quite recovered from those three years on the move. He gets winded walking home from the village, and he’s developed a cough that never quite goes away. Something in her knows that he won’t make it to his Calling.

But today they have a house and a garden and a cat, a sunny patch of grass and red leaves falling from their oak tree. There’s so much missing, faces and ghosts of the people they’ve lost, but they have each other, and they have some peace. In the end, it’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to my original prompters on the meme, and to all my readers!


End file.
